Desire of sex: Physical gratification or psychological stimulation

There was slightest inkling of a casual coffee conversation leading to so deep a revelation into human psyches but as they say, “Truth is stranger than fiction”, this story was also waiting to unfold.

I was sitting with a friend over a cup of coffee and he was sharing about the stress he was going through as his marriage was not working and he also feared some false cases of dowry harassment/domestic violence would get filed on him so that his wife could get easy money and quick divorce by conveniently shifting the entire blame to husband.

Since, he didn’t have enough money to spare with, he knew he had to fight the case and it would be a long battle too. As he was sharing his thoughts and feelings, he just said, “But, what about my physical needs?”

The words struck me like a thunderbolt and I asked myself, “Are the needs really physical in true sense?”

I started thinking more about the topic and a lot of unanswered questions popped up in my mind in a flash of a second,

Who needs sex – the body or the mind?

Sex is stimulated by the body or by the mind?

The most typical conservative Indian does not have sex before marriage, so typically it’s after 25 or 28 years of age. What happens to the physical needs before that?

Even if we take the case of a liberal Indian who would have sex before marriage around the age of 16 or 18 then also what happens to the physical needs before that?

There are other physical needs also like thirst, hunger, sleep, fitness, etc. which are less talked about but this one. Why so?

These and many other questions kept pestering my mind until I realized that “desire of sex” is not a physical gratification, its psychological stimulation.

It’s a need of the mind and not of the body. Bodily needs like hunger, thirst, sleep, etc. cannot be compensated or made to wait; they need to be gratified at the earliest possible. However, there are many people who find alternatives to channelize their sex drives; which tells us, that it is a matter of tuning the mind and not the body. The body just follows the mental state.

This is also the reason that most men, who go for paid sex, either do not enjoy it or get addicted to it, because they fail to realize it’s not a demand of the body, it’s a demand of the mind.

By proper channelization of emotions, and involving self in self-gratifying activities, the mind can actually achieve the same stimulus as having sex and thus, the need for sex for compensated if it is not available readily or steadily, but the same does not apply to other bodily needs like hunger, thirst, sleep etc. If you are hungry, you need to have food, if you are thirsty, you need water, if you are feeling sleepy, you need to get some sleep. However, the same does not hold good for sex.

There are many people who have successfully channelized their sex drives into something more productive.

This revelation is particularly important for single men or separated men. Both these categories of men, often fail to understand that it’s not a physical need and in that process either end up marrying or running behind divorce (even by paying a huge cost) to get remarried as they think, marriage is safe sex.

This revelation is particularly important for men as society puts a lot of restriction on sexual desires of men while rewards the sexual instincts of women.

Hence, it’s not uncommon to see people talking about compensating a woman who opts to move out of a relationship, be it marriage or otherwise while, at the same time, penalizing the man for the same. Most men think, it’s OK to punish men when they opt out of a relationship and in that process; they actually ruin the life of a man because he followed his sexual instincts.

So, while we talk of gender equality, this inequality gets conveniently ignored and the society does not feel the need of addressing it as well. As a result, men suffer.

However, the solution to this problem also lies with men. Men must not hate other men over sexual desires. Especially the powerful alpha men, who run the show, need to discourage practices and laws that punish a powerless beta man for following his sexual instincts be it marriage or otherwise.

The desire for sex is a not a physical requirement and men don’t need to compromise their lives and lifestyle for gratifying the same. It can be tuned psychologically if sex is so costly and dangerous for men.